In an orchard you let down your guard,
Not as in a thicket which raises an alarm
Of murderers lying there and you unarmed;
Danger there may be, but you’re disarmed,
The threat by sightlines forced to disregard.
You let down your guard in an orchard
Whose airy orderliness consoles
As if death isn’t crouched behind the boles,
Flowering incompatible with tortured.
Yet in a grove — not tangle, not raster —
What status is this when, all the senses in flame,
One steps between tranquility and disaster
And stands in the sights of someone taking aim.